Bowser Big Boy work

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I bought the Big Boy kit years ago at the local clubs swap meet, and as time went I went thru various construction phases on it. I tinkered with sound and decided maybe I could put sound on this engine, and dual motor it also so the drivers would get outa sync at times. I had gone as far as doublemounting 2 can motors on it, well, I shelved the project, busted parts, ordering thru my LHS was giving problems due to parts number changes etc put it all on hold till I got parts. Lucky find was at a swap meet someone had a box full of challenger parts, seems like someones challenger might had taken a nose dive to the floor as parts were broken, but there were plenty of good parts in it, so I bought it, about the most handy thing I did. Same show I found a brass centipede tender that I will use behind it as the Bowser never had a tender for it. They have the adapter for the plastic kit big boy which I got, but will use the brass tender instead.

So now, after my Challenger fix I did, and runs great on my test track, it was finally time after all these years to dig into fixing the Big Boy after collecting parts to replace broken eccentrics, etc etc etc…

The old pewterlike metal broke easily, had new brass eccentrics and changed those, excellent! But I had to pop the rivets off to change them…oof very teeny work, but it worked, using Bowser’s rivet tool, the new eccentrics are on.

2nd motor came out, I decided to 1 motorize it, tinkered with Athearn power transfer parts, but just didnt work out, so used Bowser’s shafts, but are falling apart due to age, so sometime I will get NWSL’s ones, but are working for now. A little superglue fixes the worst one.

After a lot of tinkering I won’t describe thru, I got the mechanism together. popped the boiler on, kinda half-threw together the 2nd challenger tender to power test the Big Boy (I have one more half-built Challenger)

I drop it on my test track making sure tender trucks insulated side is on the righ

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Way back when MR had an article or two about the Bowser Big Boy and how to build/detail it. Can’t remember the issues but maybe contact MR and they can steer you the right direction.

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Dinwitty–

Keep at it, friend. I’ve never bult a Bowser loco, but people I know who have, say that every hour spent in building and ‘tweaking’ it is well worth it for the results. And as someone who has spent the last 2 months rebuilding and tweaking a ‘Basket Case’ Akane Yellowstone, I know where you’re coming from. Just keep working on it–to coin a phrase: “The reward’s waiting for you on down the track.”

Tom [:P]

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I have lots of backissues dating to the 40’s, so maybe I have that. Havent checked yet.

Did more tweakages, did switch out the gear holder with the one minus the support plate, tweak-bent the front/rear drivers holder thingy, I had to dremel-grind the boiler body where the gear supports hit for better clearance.

After all the tweakages, the engine finally made it around the test loop, 24" radiius.

Because of the bowser power transfer and their flexishafts breaking down, anytime it hit the curve it slowed badly. On straight, it was GREAT!. Well, it needs the NWSL power transferor sumpthin,

and the motor really isnt powerfull enough. I cut off the Bowser motor mounts for the can motor fittings, so cant use the bowser motor.

After test runnning, the motor suddenly went SPIIIINNNNNN I knew I lost some connection there. The engine still needs help but this time its parts buying. but I am very pleased I got it to run around the loop unaided…to some degree… 8-D

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Dinwitty, you have my respect. I don’t have your level of perseverence when it comes to mechanical and electrical issues. I’d like to see a picture of the whole locomotive and tender.

Mark

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Just keep repeating to yourself “model railroading is fun … model railroading is fun … model railroading is fun.”

Dave Nelson

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a couple images, quickie test on the Diamond Scale Turntable see if it fits. It isnt all detailed up the tender isnt the tender for it and its without the body, just for testing.

Turntable I bought at a swap meet, Diamond Scale, it needs fixing up, I bought a motorizing kit from them, eventually it will be installed somewhere on the layout.

closer view, brass eccentric is obvious on the siderods that I changed.

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Sounds like you’ve made a lot of progress on that big ol’ hunk-o-metal! I think you’ll be very pleased when you get some NWSL shafts in there. Will you be posting the finished results when it’s finally done?[:D]

What kind of a motor do you have in there right now? If it’s as weak as you say, I may be able to point you out to a more powerful one with a similar size to whatever you have now (there are some very powerful small motors available right now).

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Its a Sagami from NWSL, not in a position to look at the motor for now, but consider the power of a DC71 motor.

It can run the engine fine just when it hits the curves the flex-shafts bind in due to age and it cant take it.

The motor has to fit in the firebox opening.

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If I’m not mistaken, NWSL makes (or made) a gearbox set for articulated locomotives. It might be more involved than you want to get into but then again, might be worth a look. If you cannot find it, I think I have one somewhere around here and can get you the part #s.

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I have regeared Rivarrossi engines meaning pulling drivers off to put new gears on and quartering, even remotored and regeared a mantua 0-6-0 (great slow puller BTW)

The Bowser gearing is fine however. I dont want to mess with its gears :whoah!:

A really good can motor should do the trick. cant use the Bowser motor as I filed the supports off for the can motor.

The project goes on a minor hiatus while I shift gears and find parts/motor.

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Here are a couple motors that should work (when you’re ready to get one).

Canon 18x33mm 5-pole can motor (2mm shaft) (used in OMI/T55 products). These are as strong as the Bowser DC-71s, and they’re smaller at the same time.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Flat-can-Canon-motor-has-5-skewed-poles-high-power_W0QQitemZ360044500522QQihZ023QQcategoryZ484QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Maxon 7-pole 17x25mm coreless motor (1.5mm shaft). More expensive than the Canon motor, but stronger and smaller. No cogging at low speeds.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Swiss-Maxon-17-mm-7-pole-coreless-motor-High-torque_W0QQitemZ360051536156QQihZ023QQcategoryZ484QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Both run between 9 and 10,000 RPM, which will make your Big Boy go around 60 scale MPH. The Maxon motor is a little more fragile since it’s coreless (will heat up very quickly if stalled), but it’s still plenty durable if care is taken. It will also coast without a flywheel. Either of these would make your Big Boy a good, strong runner.[:D]

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Nifty. I was strolling around the bowser site and looked at the parts for the big boy and found the DC-71 motor and its setup, and went WOOPS, some of those power parts I have laying around in my parts bins, ahhh okay those are my bowser parts I pulled off, and I have that DC-71 motor, so I wrangled all the parts together made a new shaft (piano wire) and its running now with the DC-71 motor. I am going to tidy it up like this for now give some run tests and see how it performs now.

The motor is only supported on one screw, the rear support is flying loose so I have to wrangle some stock brass and work a support for it, otherwise the motor can turn away.

I’ll check the can motors and in time re-cannonize it. 8-D

This will be the FIRST time this engine will have SERIOUSLY operated!

After this I am going to hit my unfinished challenger wh

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Here she (he) is now ran it around the test track forwards and backwards, derailed backwards at one point, but thats a track fault, it needs smoooth track transitions. Ran fairly well, noisyish, but expected. It will need a little run in time.

Tender is still the test tender.

This is the real tender its getting, all brass, picked up at a swap meet, like 20 bucks, working headlight on the back with a jeweled headlight above and marker lights, looks like jewel markerlights but I bet I could micro-bulb them with colored lenses.

I have to fenagle some kind of drawbar thingy for it, but its gonna get it.

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Dinwitty–

That tender isn’t by chance an old Kemtron, is it? Reason I ask, is that if you have any trouble with it, I believe that Precision Scale in Montana offers the old Kemtrons in their catalogue. At least they used to, and I think that tender’s still available if you need any spare parts for it.

Hey, so whattaya going to do with that big, cast Bowser SP-1 tender in your first photo? I tacked one onto an old brass ‘junker’ AC cab forward that couldn’t make up its mind whether it was an AC-6 or what (came with a ‘streamlined’ cab and spoked wheels–I think it was an old Akane, but nobody knew and it was in pieces) about a decade ago, replaced the tender wheels with NWSL’s and it picks up current like it was standing in a bucket of water with a house line accidentally dropped into it. That thing is HEAVY!! All I have to do is crack the throttle, and that AC-whatever is taking off down the tracks like it has LIONEL LINES stamped on the tender, LOL!

Dang, that Bowser Big Boy is BIG!!!

Tom [:D]

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Hi Din

I too have had a Bowser kit for a long time. A PRR I1s. I have built it and disassembled it several times. I keep upgradeing the details and super detailing the loco and kit bashing the right tender for it. When it runs it seems like it would pull start a semi. With the DC71 motor it only draws .25 amps at speed. Some day it will be finished and super detailed and painted like it just had a boiler wash and major shopping ready to pull or push the freight up the hills.

My next Bowser is the H9 kit and another I1s. All with Tsunnami sound decoders.

Keep up the good work.

Pete

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That tender goes to my unbuilt (unfinished that is) challenger, its sitting in the ready tracks waiting its turn. The running gear is already on but some broken parts needing replacing on the running gear (big GRRR)

In the background you can see the other challenger I have which runs fine.

The Centipede has very rough soldering inside the shell and there are no markings who made it.

It looks complete, just a few details to bend back into position like handrails. No jewels in the marker lights, I wanna light those up actually.

I just tinkered trying a drawbar, didnt work, have to remove a detail part, drill and tap a new hole and its good to go. The centipede may go on sooner than expected.

Already has a kadee.

Ran the bigboy again, runs quite well, draggy on the curves tho, speedier in

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There ya go, Centipede tender.

I drilled 2 holes for the drawbar, the first was too close to the lead wheels shorting on the curves., then I found the lead truck had a wheelset reversed shorting out…duh, fixxard.

I had to pull each of the centipede wheels and briteboy the axles and wheel treads, all dirty, poor pickup all. smothered with railzip. Runs reaaaaaal nice now. It still has this stickyness on curves, and I blame the power train design. Noisy, I will look into something really different. It will get the can motor eventually.

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now I got my unfinished challenger’s running gear all assembled, did a bench run test, groggy at first, but wore in and is running fairly good. Broke a main rod in the process but I got spares on purpose for that. Its almost ready for track test… Wheee!! teeeny tiny parts, hadda do some riveting again, soon I may be able to triplehead a big boy and 2 challengers… wow

lotta work done on my stuff that has sat undone for years.

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Do you have enough rolling stock for that? [:O]

Nice work there, Dinwitty. [8D][tup] I think the boilers on those are a bit oversized, so it will probably dwarf an Allegheny. I like a loco that doubles as a boat anchor. [4:-)]

When you talk about drivetrain noise, is it coming from the gearing, universals, or both? I remember Darth having some issues with the universals between the engines on his Challenger.